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How often do you see horse racing on T.V1? On this occasion it was a race, a race in which a jockey was hurt and a horse put down. A very insensitive effort by T.V1.

Before throwing myself into the shark-infested waters of 2022, a few final reflections on 2021 up here. Another difficult year for the sport both from events outside its control and from some self-inflicted wounds but I think horse racing has continued to provide much valued entertainment and support throughout difficult times. The Flat season was, as always, a long and drawn out story of triumphs and disasters. Perhaps for the first time we've seen a decisive swing in the balance of power away from Coolmore and Aidan O'Brien and back to Godolphin and Charlie Appleby. Certainly in terms of the prospects for next season, it's the latter who lead the way but as for this season's 3-y-o, it was much more even. Godolphin had the better of the long distance scene with Derby and King George winner ADAYAR and Leger winner HURRICANE LANE and with both due to stay in training as 4-y-o, it looks as though Godolphin will bring quality to events at 2400m and beyond. That's not to say Aidan O'Brien didn't have quality - in ST MARK'S BASILICA, winner of the Eclipse and the Irish Champion, he had arguably the best 3-y-o and certainly the dominant player at 2000m. MOTHER EARTH was a model of consistency at 1600m but this was a vintage year for the filly milers with both ALCOHOL FREE and SNOW LANTERN winning Group 1 races. POETIC FLARE was the best of the colt milers running in seven successive Group 1 races and collecting the 2000 Guineas and St James's Palace among others. At 1400m, SPACE BLUES continued to be the best of an increasingly competitive division and won the Foret to confirm his status. STARMAN won the July Cup over 1200m at Newmarket but was edged out by EMARAATY ANA in a thriller at Haydock. The latter had come on from a narrow defeat to WINTER POWER in the Nunthorpe but while WINTER POWER reigned supreme at the Knavesmire, the stiffer 1000m at Ascot proved a slog as they went too fast too soon and up popped the 2020 July Cup winner OXTED to prove his versatility at the sprint distances. Among the stayers, the crown rested uneasy on the head of STRADIVARIUS - he was well beaten in the Gold Cup by SUBJECTIVIST but the latter's rise to the top was cruelly halted by a career ending injury. STRADIVARIUS seemed back to his best in an epic battle with SPANISH MISSION in the Lonsdale and a romp on fast ground at Doncaster but with the autumn rains came a new staying star in the shape of TRUESHAN who would relish the soft autumn ground to win the Cadran and the Long Distance Cup on Champions Day. Oisin Murphy prevailed after a long battle with William Buick to retain the jockeys' title but a re-emergence of past demons led to him relinquishing his licence and seeking renewed treatment for drink and drug addiction. The death of Sheikh Hamdan and the reduction of the Shadwell racing and breeding empire casts a shadow over Newmarket and other training centres. As for the jumpers, the Irish routed the English 23-5 at Cheltenham taking most of the championship races. APPRECIATE IT and BOB OLINGER won the novice hurdles but SHISHKIN kept the Arkle at home. HONEYSUCKLE won the Champion Hurdle but it was all change in the Gold Cup with AL BOUM PHOTO's attempt at winning a third renewal of the Blue Riband failing at the hands of MINELLA INDO and Rachel Blackmore. Blackmore would further be propelled to international notice when becoming the first female jockey to win a Grand National at a deserted Aintree in April on MINELLA TIMES. The Cheltenham meeting was overshadowed by a scandal which engulfed Gordon Elliott when pictures of him sitting astride a dead horse on the gallops surfaced. Elliott got a 6-month ban and racing's reputation got another trashing. Nonetheless, his loss was Henry de Bromhead's gain and the latter ended up as the new training power in the land. Jockey Richard Johnson retired - he had the misfortune of being a contemporary of AP McCoy and was runner up no less than 15 times in the jockeys' title before winning it himself after McCoy retired. The new season seemed to do little to dent Irish dominance. FRODON may have won at Down Royal but A PLUS TARD won the Betfair at Haydock and TORNADO FLYER took the King George and with any number of talents among the novice hurdlers and chasers Cheltenham 2022 looks like another tough gig for the home team. I hope you've all enjoyed my ramblings in 2021 - more of the same, if not similar, in 2022 I fear.

We can make some very basic changes that don’t cost a lot of money, but will add huge value and incentivize betting ….which in turn leads to increased revenue 1. make some savings across the RIB / JCA / NZ Racing Lab…..14 Million and climbing per annum is too much to pay for what the three deliver, or don’t deliver actually Invest those savings into enhanced media technology 2.Give us some stats and data to make a point of difference Eg give us the weight of each horse as it enters the birdcage with a plus or minus on the “rolling average” of what weight it has been running at 3. Put GPS technology in every saddle cloth so that we can see how much distance each horse covered in each start, and where it should have finished if the field was “adjusted” to meters covered in a specific xxxx time 4. Involve drones following horses, the technology is everywhere, skiing, surfing, climbing, it’s very safe and easily made safer, but hardly used in racing There should be drones offset to the side, above, and behind the field while running, and you could even make a case for allowing punters to switch their viewing to the drone of their choice in the run 4. Give us the opportunity to lay horses…it’s a massive market but totally untapped in NZ There we go, thank me later team

Yes, how could I forget BAAEED? Went from winning a Leicester maiden in June to two Group 1 successes in the Moulin and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Among the 3-y-o colt milers we can then say the first half of the season belonged to POETIC FLARE and the second half to BAAEED. Very little between them on a line through PALACE PIER, the top older miler who won the Lockinge and the Queen Anne. PALACE PIER beat POETIC FLARE a neck in the Sussex and went down by a neck to BAAEED in the Queen Elizabeth II at Ascot. Both PALACE PIER and POETIC FLARE have been retired so BAAEED looks the dominant force among the older milers - you'd think the Lockinge and Queen Anne would be his targets - and we'll just have to see how the classic generation shape up but whoever emerges ad the top 3-y-o miler will have a real fight at Goodwood. Among the juveniles the British colts and fillies looked better with NATIVE TRAIL winning the National and the Dewhurst to go into winter quarters favourite for the 2000 Guineas and Derby while INSPIRAL was top rated filly after wins in the May Hill and the Fillies' Mile.

Sorry you're the recipient of my gripes. I've tried correspondence with Auckland in the past with little response other than acknowledging receipt. When we lost the Harness Weekly, and its "Letters to the Editor" we little people lost an industry-wide safe forum to raise and discuss issues (and to get responses from officials that everyone could read). I used that forum (and contributed articles) and was successful in influencing opinions and instigating changes. I've since joined several harness racing/breeding groups on Facebook but having seen how nasty some people get, am not prepared to open myself to abuse by raising issues there. I find Racecafe a much more considered forum to air my thoughts and know influential people do read posts . We've trotters with 3 different trainers in the north and at all three stables, very similar industry frustrations (and possible solutions) are aired. I think HRNZ should have on their website the equivalent of a "Letters to the Editor". It would have to be heavily moderated but would allow all industry participants the option to have a voice, to share ideas (and data), and better understand each others perspectives and decisions.

I have reported this tweet: Im sorry for Gold Watch, who had no choice but to race, he was forced to race, maybe this incident will lighten you and your folks up on how to treat animals, and not sed them as sn object for lucrative purposes... RIP Gold Watch, an inocent creature

Provided a proposition for the drones 4 years ago and no-one wanted to bite. Have a horse tracking system that not only tells you where the horse is to an accuracy of 200mm, but also everything about the stride pattern and frequency...latency only 0.45 seconds (that is the time of arrival of the positional signal after the real time event)....no one wanted to take it further although it was trialed....means you can virtualise racing and present it differently. Also automatically tells you the weight of a horse. Could put it on a horse as an ear tag if need be... Laying horses is a tricky business because it promotes cheating in a major way....do we need more bad imagery for the do gooders to attack us on? Totally agree to the RIU debacle...ridiculous position we are in

Yes what a tragic day at Ellerslie. with Gold Watch being euthanised and Danielle Johnston breaking her leg, must admit I shed a tear or two thinking of poor Cliff Goss. He will miss his old friend. And then to make matters worse TV1 Soorts showed the replay of the whole thing tonight. How insensitive can they be. They hardly every give a racing any space but then to show that is absolutely disgusting.. Trackside never replayed it again and we’re very compassionate about the incident.

Thankyou Janitor mate, yeh there'll be more to this I'd say Cheers Iraklis

Anyone care - go Arna!!

From the outset Canam encountered problems with the foundations. Unstable volcanic rock forced the club’s engineers Engenium to fill cavernous holes with concrete and to use piles instead of concrete bases under each column of steel, at an extra cost of more than $5 million, putting the build a year behind schedule. Meanwhile the Australian company Ganellen, hired to construct two more apartment buildings, had even worse problems with its foundations. In April, 2018, the Auckland City Council ordered a halt to all work on both projects, citing issues with the steel, bought from China, and breaches of the building consent through lack of inspections. It took three months to resolve the issue. While the parties bickered about who was responsible, questions arose on why the club had engaged Engenium, whose engineer Alan Reay designed the Christchurch CTV building that collapsed during the February, 2011 earthquake, killing 115 people. Reay escaped charges but was later criticised by a Royal Commission. The trotting club’s steel was supplied by Reay’s long-time associate property developer Bert Govan’s Challenge Steel which later went into liquidation owing $10 million. Unhappy with Canam’s progress on the job, the ATC terminated Canam’s contract in July, 2018, and appointed another Auckland company, CMP Construction, spending many millions correcting Canam’s mess. Another major disruption that cost millions and months to fix came when the wrong cladding was put up on the buildings and had to be pulled down and replaced. Ganellen also took a case against the ATC, believed to be for more than $13 million for lost time and variations to its contract. Despite repeated assurances from its legal advisors that the club would win, the judgements came back in favour of Ganellen and the club ended up paying out an undisclosed amount in a mediated settlement. Insiders believe much of the legal fee haemhorraging could have been avoided had the club sat down and discussed the issues with its contractors, rather than pointed guns at each other. ATC directors served with legal papers Unknown to its members, Ganellen served every director on the board with legal papers, saying they could be personally liable for acting unreasonably in not trying to work out a solution. But, according to one inside source, perhaps the most costly decision the board made in its naievity over property development, was not taking the chance to mitigate its losses when various sunset clauses were activated after the project fell years behind schedule. With all the delays and with costs of labour and materials rising, most savvy property developers would have revised the price of the apartments to more like market level. The units had already risen in value by 20 to 30% over the years so investors would not have suffered. President Bruce Carter, however, was determined to honour the club’s word to buyers, passing on the chance to recoup tens of millions of dollars, the suggestion also that he feared people might choose to walk away and a glut of apartments would come up for resale. Ultimately, it appears the turnaround on a project initially projected to earn the club $48 million, came down to a lack of construction expertise on the board, though many sitting round the table were reportedly often never privy to dispute details, handled by a dominant president and CEO. The project was developed and managed by CEO Dominique Dowding, who had no experience in property development when she came to the club in 2012 after seven years as the sales, marketing, events and entertainment manager at the Christchurch Town Hall. Dowding, who was also responsible for the investment, funding and all legal and financial reporting, won the Auckland Property Council’s inaugural Women in Property Award in 2016 for her ongoing leadership on the significant urban village. A citation at the time said: “As chief executive, Ms Dowding has led the board’s strategic turn-around of the 126-year-old iconic Auckland Trotting Club to put it on a more commercial footing, ensuring its long-term financial sustainability and the survival of harness racing in the northern region. Dowding left the club in March, 2019.

I'm allowed to poke my nose in. You do it often enough. Still trying to figure out if this a site for disgruntled punters to bitch about losing their money when they make idiotic bets. $2000 to win????? Mug punter then. Better to spread the $2k over a 10 race card than lose it all on one horse